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Wed. May 21st, 2025 4:38:30 AM
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The ongoing crisis within the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) which saw Ahmed Gulak, former special adviser on political matters to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, invade the national headquarters to take over as chairman, was in essence, the celebration of the tradition of impunity. Even as the PDP navigates through a painful transition that could decide its future, Gulak’s show of shame indicated that those aspiring to pilot the affairs of PDP after the post 2015 electoral defeat have learnt little or nothing from history. However, the main lesson from the crisis is that, in theory and in practice, democracy is no vanity; you either believe in and practice it; or you corrupt it for as long as you want, but that grand deceit will implode, sooner or later. How the PDP manages the present crisis would determine whether the party would succeed in reinventing itself.

The current PDP crisis is one perfect illustration of Nigerian politicians’ warped sense of duty and their disrespect for democracy. For instead of concentrating on service to the people, their primary concern remains who is up that must be brought down, or who is down that must be buried. In their love of power for its own sake, the only use to which they put it is intrigues and vanities, sparing no thought for the people in whose trust the power is held. The facts of the crisis needs no retelling, but after the disgraceful outing of the PDP in the 2015 election, especially the presidency, which it lost; the then national chairman, Adamu Mu’azu resigned. The PDP constitution unequivocally states that in the event or death, removal or permanent disability of the chairman, someone from his geopolitical zone should be selected to fill the void. But instead of selecting a replacement from Mu’azu’s Northeast zone, the erstwhile national vice chairman, Uche Secondus, stepped in as acting national chairman, much to the chagrin of Gulak, who hails from the Northeast.

Gulak filed a suit challenging the competence of Secondus to occupy the position of PDP acting national chairman. Gulak contended that the appellation of “acting national chairman” was unknown to the PDP constitution, praying the court to determine whether not being from the Northeast; Secondus was qualified to lead the party in such a capacity. On December 16, 2015, an Abuja High Court ordered Secondus to “vacate office and allow Mr. Ahmed Gulak or any other person from the Northeast zone to take over” as acting national chairman. It was based on that order that Gulak sought to crown himself national chairman.

But what Gulak should have done after securing the court approbation was to tour his northeast geopolitical zone and canvass for support for his candidacy. This failure at building consensus on the path of restoring the PDP to its constitution is highly disturbing. While the crisis has engendered debate about PDP’s future, it has also exposed the fact that the so-called largest party in Africa, was nothing other than a special purpose vehicle for political contractors and sundry jobbers and predators for acquiring power for its own sake, amassing wealth via the route of government as the biggest business and mindlessly impoverishing the people. But as is always the case with all houses of cards, the PDP eventually, had to face its own internal contradictions. The on-going frenzy is a scramble for power for its own sake. Worse even, the shameless altercation is not about any well-formulated ideology or philosophy to transform the PDP, but rather on self-aggrandizement. Nothing is more disheartening.

While the PDP is locked in a frenzied but obviously haphazard effort to put its house in order, some have said the implosion was expected because of the content and character of the party. No doubt, from formation, the PDP has remained a non-descript entity, an umbrella body of strange bedfellows. The arrangement that brought it to power in 1999 was bereft of strong democratic principles. In effect, all those who occupied executive positions at both the state and federal levels merely usurped party powers and undermined its supremacy to the extent that once they emerge, the party officials became more powerful than the party that produced them. As a corollary, loyalty shifted from the party to individuals who were either elected into public offices, appointed into same or were wealthy financiers. Party discipline was thrown overboard and executive whims and extra-constitutional behavior governed party affairs so much so that its constitution was operated only to suit the temperament of PDP leaders.

What is more, internal democracy was banished from the party and its members became untaught to the fact that democracy is the pleasant tyranny of the majority. General elections conducted since PDP came into power have all tainted the democratization process and were the worst in Nigeria’s electoral history. The party became an unwieldy behemoth, housing many undemocratic tendencies, especially politicians who discerned early enough that government is the fastest route to wealth and designed a way to get in at all cost. The PDP thus became a clog to the democratic transformation of the polity, an unmanned or poorly driven monstrous truck rolling over the landscape, crushing anything in its path, with its first victims being its prominent members. Given this undemocratic character of the party, the present crisis is hardly surprising.

Indeed, if the PDP and its leaders would do right by Nigerians, this crisis offers an opportunity for the party to re-invent itself on the basis of democratic principles and service orientation. In repairing the breach caused by the terrible loss of the 2015 general election, conventional political wisdom dictates that all those who played active part in both the Jonathan’s administration and the National Working Committee (NWC), should maintained a dignified distance from the party’s leadership. PDP should espouse a new policy framework aimed at rejigging the party, and organize free and fair elections for party office aspirants. PDP needs a big show of internal democracy to convince Nigerians that it has learnt from its mistakes.

The party must ask itself why the locus of power is so fluid and contradictory. Between the chairman, the Board of Trustees, the NWC and the Governors, it is not clear who is in charge of party affairs. The effect is that the party is enfeebled, existing not as a platform for nation-building ideas but only as a vehicle to power and wealth, and therefore embroiled in endlessly simmering power tussles. The party has run its affairs without a coherent idea and has hardly articulated any discernible manifesto. This is the time for PDP to reexamine itself, re-discover what it means to be a responsible opposition party and re-invent itself for service to Nigeria in line with the finest ideals of democracy. The current crisis offers a window of genuine opportunity for them to show-case alternative values to long suffering Nigerians desperate for real change.

The argument can, of course, be made that the APC is not much better. It is hoped that they would learn a lesson or two from the crisis rocking the PDP. Nigeria needs healthy opposition parties. Democracy does too. Apart from being an aggregation of people with commonality of interest, a political party is the motor-force of democracy and a breeding ground for leadership and policy articulation. The healthier the parties in democratic credentials; the healthier the polity. It is therefore, not just a mere wish but an ardent hope that, from the current rumblings in PDP, may emerge a better and responsible opposition party with the interest of Nigeria and democracy at heart.

 

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